So many military shooters tout the credentials of their advisors there's a tendency to assume this is hype, but NBC News has word that the SEALs who participated in the development of Medal of Honor have received letters of reprimand from the U.S. Navy, and have been docked half their pay for two months (thanks David). The latest installment in EA's shooter series takes pride in the contribution of "actual U.S. Tier 1 Operators," and the truth of this is borne out by this reprimand: "We do not tolerate deviations from the policies that govern who we are and what we do as Sailors in the United States Navy," says a written statement from Deputy Commander of Naval Special Warfare, Rear Admiral Garry Bonelli. "The non-judicial punishment decisions made today send a clear message throughout our Force that we are and will be held to a high standard of accountability."

Too bad they didn't put it into America's Army. They would have received medals of commendation.

As for this whole ideological comparitive, if people lived their lives as if the person they most respected was standing next to them always, a lot of this bullshit would never happen.

Both sides of the aisle claim a higher moral authority, and yet exercise hypocrisy to the extreme.

Rove is a dick. Doin what he did to that operative would get you shot if he was anyone else.

The officer releasing the docs to Wikileaks is no different: he put active duty soldiers in harms way.

Honestly, the whole lot has me worried about the future of this country. Everyone seems so "me" and far less "we."

It was the "we" times in our history that this country shined most. Unfortunately, it seems like most of those times are behind us. Short term victories and social media statistics drive policy more than a strong moral compass and doing what is right, even should it prove unpopular at the time (see also "Abraham Lincoln," the man every politician claims to admire, but would never be so brave as to emulate).

Cutter wrote on Nov 9, 2012, 23:39:Well maybe if the US wasn't starting wars and invading countries it wouldn't be a problem now, would it?

Trainwreck wrote on Nov 9, 2012, 22:34:Ah. How much experience do you have looking through EO/IR cameras, trying to discern everyday objects from weapons? In time-critical situations when troops have been in contact and an error in judgment will result in lives lost? Because I have plenty, myself, so I didn't want to embarrass myself if you had over 800 hours of combat flight time or something.

Anyway, the Apache video demonstrates - assuming the context is correct and WikiLeaks isn't lying with their commentary - is an unfortunate but completely understandable mistake given the situation.

As someone who has worked with those types of aircraft and ground forces extensively in various operations, I can attest to their professionalism and the seriousness with whic they assume their duties. AVOIDING civilian casualties in Afghanistan was our highest concern; to the point where we regularly risked the lives of our own before risking shooting or bombing the wrong person.

And do I view the GWOT as us vs. them? Yes, yes I do. That's what war is, and especially in this case, considering the tactics and goals of terrorists and Islamist governments, and their facilitators and sympathizers.

Um, not to discount and disrespect anything in your argument but I have to ask, what does any of this have to do with GAMES?! In case you all forgot, you're on a VIDEO GAMES WEBSITE. It's NOT political and NOT military, and honestly, a lot of us come HERE to get away from the very thing you people seem to constantly bicker about but NEVER agree on. So why even f'n argue about it in the first place? You know you're not going to get anywhere and the argument is just going to turn into a Democrat versus Republican 'He said, She said', like it always does. This is why we no longer argue about whether the PC or the Mac is better. Because regardless of the facts, everyone has their own opinion and while it is legal and a right to argue your opinion, it doesn't mean I have to #$%# listen to it all the damn time...no offense...

And in celebration of the right to state your opinions, let me say that this Democrat vs. Republican, Left vs Right bullshit is getting way out of hand! I'm getting so fucking sick of seeing something happen and 20 people over here snicker that if the liberals would just kill themselves the world would be rainbows and unicorns and 20 people over there saying if the conservative jackwads would keep their mouths shut, we'd all be happier than Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah's couch...ENOUGH ALREADY! I'd love to just give you opinionated sons of bitches all the guns and bombs you want, put you all on a remote island and you can blow your asses to kingdom come to prove who's is bigger, if only that would mean you'd all just shut up! ...Just sayin'...

=-Rigs-=

'Now, we gave you a promise and we are bound by that promise and damn you for asking for it! And damn me for agreeing to it! And damn all of us to Hell because that is exactly where we're going!'

Ah. How much experience do you have looking through EO/IR cameras, trying to discern everyday objects from weapons? In time-critical situations when troops have been in contact and an error in judgment will result in lives lost? Because I have plenty, myself, so I didn't want to embarrass myself if you had over 800 hours of combat flight time or something.

Anyway, the Apache video demonstrates - assuming the context is correct and WikiLeaks isn't lying with their commentary - is an unfortunate but completely understandable mistake given the situation.

As someone who has worked with those types of aircraft and ground forces extensively in various operations, I can attest to their professionalism and the seriousness with whic they assume their duties. AVOIDING civilian casualties in Afghanistan was our highest concern; to the point where we regularly risked the lives of our own before risking shooting or bombing the wrong person.

And do I view the GWOT as us vs. them? Yes, yes I do. That's what war is, and especially in this case, considering the tactics and goals of terrorists and Islamist governments, and their facilitators and sympathizers.

The litmus test for this sort of thing for me is always whether or not the information leaked puts other soldiers/operatives lives at risk. I don't see that being the case here, but the massive wikileaks information leaks certainly did.

As for the political side of your argument, I could not be less interested in discussing it with you. I'm neither Democrat nor Republican, and it's foolish to think that misconduct occurs on just one side of the aisle.

No kidding; this board is replete with spin doctors.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” - Mahatma Gandhi

I would have thought that attacking some camera/news crews with an aphachi (ah-64 attack helicopter) and then flying around to attack the civilians that come to their help and then attacking a van with children in it, would be at lest close to "some great evil being perpetuated" Kind of like this

I guess if you think it's cool to put US military operations at risk, or put Coalition lives at greater risk, you can turn Manning into a folk hero. You'd have to hold a sincere belief that al Qaeda and the Taliban remnant are morally superior to US/NATO forces to do so, however.

You can't be an ethically-minded person and do what Manning did. Nor can you apologize or justify it; it was just plain wrong. He didn't release them because he had some great concern for some great evil being perpetuated; he released them because he was disgruntled or had some anti-American feeling that took hold. He didnt have any knolwege that anything wrong was going on, or else I'm sure he would've released the damning documents themselves (which don't exist), rather than entire databases full of classified information. There are channels in place for whistleblowers to expose misconduct in the military, including classified channels which do not reveal our secrets to adversaries.

Regardless, releasing classified documents jeopardizes the mission by revealing our tactics, sources, future operations, the extent of our intelligence, our capabilities, etc. I guess if you think it's cool to put US military operations at risk, or put Coalition lives at greater risk, you can turn Manning into a folk hero. You'd have to hold a sincere belief that al Qaeda and the Taliban remnant are morally superior to US/NATO forces to do so, however.

As for the political side of your argument, I could not be less interested in discussing it with you. I'm neither Democrat nor Republican, and it's foolish to think that misconduct occurs on just one side of the aisle.

This is obviously more about sea men. Let's just face it, talking about real sea men and what sea men techniques are used in the real world is what this is all about. The sea men came forth with this load of information of they're own free hand will. We should not sugar coat the sea men or make light of the ejaculation of this information upon the general public. Ofcourse the Navy now is the one with a load on they're face, and they had to bust-a-nut to cover the consequences of this huge boner. Frankly the situation is a bit hard to swallow and I imagine the Navy is going to be cleaning up this mess for awhile...

So you say there wasn't any serious wrongdoing in these documents? Are you saying he should have kept them at home for 30 years sifted through them to find the stuff that's relevant? And how relevant would it have been once he found it and then only leaked the parts that uncovered wrongdoing?

And how exactly did the CIA operative outing by Karl Rove uncover wrong-doings? He leaked her name to bullshit the name of her husband. This is the lowest of the lowest reasons to leak information. And you defend that (which by the way, was high-treason he did not get punished for) but not Manning who just copy pasted random (or basically all he had access to) documents with absolutely 0 ill intent?

Trainwreck wrote on Nov 9, 2012, 12:45:And the soldier who released buttloads of CLASSIFIED information to Wikileaks did it intentionally with the harm of hurting the US. It was an act of treason, and the sheer volume of information released warrants a heavy prison sentence, if not death. It is not comparable to what the SEALs did, and they received more than a slap on the wrist.

You mean like Reagan, North, Bush Sr., Weinberger, etc. all involved in the treasonous act of Iran-Contra? That sort of treason for which there were pardons? Or more like the Nixon sort of treason - for which he too was pardoned? Or the Karl Rove outing CIA operatives sort of treason? Geez, all those republicans that committed treason were pardoned or never brought to trial and yet when a kid actually does the right thing they decide to make an example of him and violate not only his constitutional rights but human rights as well. Funny how that works, isn't it?

you mean the people who uncovered serious wrongdoing? Those people? Manning wasn't whislte blowing, he was just releasing as much crap as he could.

Trainwreck wrote on Nov 9, 2012, 12:45:And the soldier who released buttloads of CLASSIFIED information to Wikileaks did it intentionally with the harm of hurting the US. It was an act of treason, and the sheer volume of information released warrants a heavy prison sentence, if not death. It is not comparable to what the SEALs did, and they received more than a slap on the wrist.

You mean like Reagan, North, Bush Sr., Weinberger, etc. all involved in the treasonous act of Iran-Contra? That sort of treason for which there were pardons? Or more like the Nixon sort of treason - for which he too was pardoned? Or the Karl Rove outing CIA operatives sort of treason? Geez, all those republicans that committed treason were pardoned or never brought to trial and yet when a kid actually does the right thing they decide to make an example of him and violate not only his constitutional rights but human rights as well. Funny how that works, isn't it?

That's mainly why I am asking, nothing in MOH seems like something an actual intelligent human being would do in a war of any kind. The "lifting of the boats with the chinooks" maybe as exception but nothing after or before that..

for giggles, I watched the playthrough on youtube... and I relly hope the military does not use Tomahawks, legs, axes or pad explosives to knock down steel doors. Because that reinforced steel door is gonna get a laughing attack.

Trainwreck wrote on Nov 9, 2012, 12:45:And the soldier who released buttloads of CLASSIFIED information to Wikileaks did it intentionally with the harm of hurting the US. It was an act of treason, and the sheer volume of information released warrants a heavy prison sentence, if not death. It is not comparable to what the SEALs did, and they received more than a slap on the wrist.

You mean like Reagan, North, Bush Sr., Weinberger, etc. all involved in the treasonous act of Iran-Contra? That sort of treason for which there were pardons? Or more like the Nixon sort of treason - for which he too was pardoned? Or the Karl Rove outing CIA operatives sort of treason? Geez, all those republicans that committed treason were pardoned or never brought to trial and yet when a kid actually does the right thing they decide to make an example of him and violate not only his constitutional rights but human rights as well. Funny how that works, isn't it?

"During times of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

A shitty reprimand for giving shitty advice to a shitty company on how to make a shitty game based on their experiences in taking part in shitty wars for a shitty government and for shitty reasons. A good story all around.